CE Peterborough Cathedral 19th Oct 2011

[DracoM]

CE Peterborough Cathedral



Order of Service:



Introit: My God, how wonderful thou art (Richard Scarth)
Responses: Morley
Psalms: 98, 99, 100, 101 (Monk, Alcock, Elgar, Nicholson)
Hymn: Creator of the earth and sky (Deus Creator)
First Lesson: 1 Kings 22: 29-45
Canticles: Downing Service (Bob Chilcott)
Second Lesson: Acts 23: 12-end
Anthem: Mater Christi sanctissima (Taverner)
Hymn: Word of the Father (Ad Tuum Nomen)


Organ Voluntary: Joie et clarté des corps glorieux (Messiaen)




David Humphreys (Assistant Director of Music)

Andrew Reid (Director of Music)




NB: NO repeat of this service on Sunday.

[DracoM]

Briefest reminder of today's tx @ 3.30 p.m.




.

[Finzi4ever]

Won't be rushing to hear the Chilcott again, sadly. Listening to 'live' Wed broadcast: balance between choir & organ (in Mag. especially) not good - not because organ played too loudly: choir seems quite remote. Missed the Scarth.

[DracoM]

Predictably the Taverner really tested all parts. Very interesting choice for this choir. Treble parts made the girls really reach and like a lot of Taverner it goes on doing it for bar after bar. Altos really did sterling work here.

Chilcott - so-so. Not a very distinguished piece. Diction all round a bit hooty and lacking precision partic in the Taverner. But nevertheless some very decent voices in the top line, leaders not afraid to commit.

Star of the show for me the Messiaen voluntary by many lengths. Thanks David Humphreys!!

Like Finzi4ever, I too found a considerable imbalance between the choir who seemed several miles away so turned up volume and was then blasted by readers / precentor etc.

[ardcarp]

I was really pleased they did theTaverner (the pre- Ref is my favourite period of ECM) and I thoght (a) it was as brave choice and (b) they acquitted themselves well. I don't altogether agree with:

Diction all round a bit hooty

.....because the top-line was using a style of head-voice singing (we discussed it recently) that was not too long ago the common currency of cathedral choirs. So I for one appreciated the sound-world they were aiming for...and I enjoyed the service, old Uncle Bob Chilcott and all. It's easy to pick flies, but Peterborough seems to be on a path to higher things, so well done.

[Magnificat]

I thought it was girls singing but as usual we were not told - why do our cathedrals and the BBC persist with this silliness.

Quite young girls I would say by the sound and like ardcarp I thought they did extremely well in the Taverner. But again, why are the boys not broadcasting ( Exeter and Peterborough girls in 2 of the last 3 CEs with WA The only live boys and men so far and half term upon us

Lovely cathedral Peterborough but a bit of a barn inside and this may account for any technical difficulties with the broadcast although I wasn't particularly aware of any great problems.

David Humphreys was a St Albans organ scholar a few years ago and I am pleased to see him getting on so well.

Apropos a recent thread and according to Cathedral Music magazine, I believe Peterborough have a lady alto in their back line did anyone notice? Draco was impressed by the altos.

VCC

[decantor]

Whether boys or girls, they did a good job. I admit that I hoped it was boys maintaining the white Vann tradition.

The whole service worked well, I thought - nice to know that the General Confession is not everywhere a thing of the past. Musically, the introit was excellent for focusing the mind, the psalms were well paced, the canticles were lightweight but fit for purpose, and the anthem - well, we hear Taverner too rarely, and its lovely long lines were a treat for the ears. And then Messiaen for the envoi - joyfully arresting. Now, where's the thumbs-up button?........

[ardcarp]

Here

[AscribeUntoTheLad]

VCC, I don't understand why you want the BBC to say whether it was boys or girls singing. Either you can tell by the sound, as you did today, in which case you don't need to be told, or you can't tell, in which case it doesn't matter who was singing.

[bar31]

I thought the Alto part stood out as by far the finest in the choir on this broadcast. I can't say I think the tenors passed the test that the Taverner gave at all well.

[YorkTenor]

AscribeUntoTheLad just summed up my view on so many discussions on these messageboards

[Magnificat]

VCC, I don't understand why you want the BBC to say whether it was boys or girls singing. Either you can tell by the sound, as you did today, in which case you don't need to be told, or you can't tell, in which case it doesn't matter who was singing.

AUTL

The fact is that many people listening to CE from a cathedral will automatically assume that the service is being sung by boys and men and many will not be able to tell the difference between boys' and girls' voices including myself on occasion. It would just make the situation so much more transparent.

Girls are so well established and accepted in cathedrals these days and there are very many excellent girls' choirs, so there is no reason not to say when they are singing as might once have been the case when there were fears that people would avoid services not sung by the boys and men and, most importantly, the girls or boys should have the courtesy and honour of being accredited.

VCC

[decantor]

AscribeUTL, you are of course right that, for any given service, it doesn't matter a jot whether boys or girls provide the top line. The only important thing is that the singing should be of good quality, worthy of its purpose. If we heard girls from Peterborough today, they did the business in spades.

But for traditionalists such as myself (I don't speak for VCC), things are not so simple. Wanting the all-male tradition to prosper, we are inclined to indulge in a little paranoid anxiety when a cathedral with two treble units chooses the girls for a broadcast. Is there a problem with the boys' choir? Recruiting difficulties, perhaps, or training not going well, or a lack of leaders, or early voice-changes? Boys' units are more vulnerable than girls', and their absence for a broadcast CE sets the imagination racing. The matter of knowing who is singing is (for me) embedded in this wider issue, however absurd it may seem.

Actually, traditionalist concerns - or paranoia, of you prefer - can run deeper yet. Visit the Choir page of most cathedral websites and you will usually find that, if there is a girls' treble unit, its image is given priority over the boys. Some cathedrals are still trumpeting their pride in the formation of a girls' section - perfectly justifiable, and I've contributed to such formations - but where is their pride in having nurtured boys' singing for a thousand years, and nurturing it still against huge odds in an increasingly hostile culture? Today, it is a doddle to persuade girls to sing, but a Herculean task to convince boys; and, even when convinced, boys are initially less compliant in the training process.

All this is predicated on the value attached to boys' voices. I happen to believe that boys do add a dimension to some genres of choral singing, and can, if only by a small margin at the summit of achievement, outperform girls of similar age - they have more power, more courage, and more colours. I believe too that boys derive more benefit from the exercise in that it refines their assimilation of self-discipline and communal effort (which come more naturally to girls, God bless 'em). But most of all I want reassurance, through personal listening, that the country's boy choristers are still on song.

An old story with a grain of truth. A girl treble section is like a VW Golf: it's reliable, it's efficient, it gets you where you want to go with minimum fuss. A boy treble section is like a classic car: it takes a lot of firing up, it's often in the garage, but when it goes well it gives you the ride of a lifetime.

[Magnificat]

Decantor

Hear, Hear

VCC

[DracoM]

On the Peterborough Cathedral choral rota, Wednesday is 'the girls' day' - hence what one might assume to be the reason behind their appearance in a broadcast on that day. Ironically, on the cathedral's own choral rota schedule the boys' choir sings far more services per week than the girls. They do say that on some important occasions, the choirs combine - a very common statement on cathedral websites. Presumably this tx was deemed insufficiently important to change the rota.

I like decantor's VW analogy. It's neat and witty, but.....! Not sure I'd agree about boys needing a 'lot of firing up'. If they are the only team on the block, they are as pro as anyone in getting the job done. After all, in their 'other lives' many will be in all manner of teams, and in teams, collaborative responsibility is the key concept. If they think that there is any kind of favouritism ref girls, my bet is that for a broadcast like this they sing like heck to make sure everyone knows they are the top ensemble in the cathedral firmament. If they do sense it, if they are consistently not required to do broadcasts etc, then I can indeed also see it going the other way and the boys singing like a 2nd X1 and shrugging.

There is NO sense whatever on the Peterborogh site that any such favouritism is in operation. It is simply, as I said, that Wednesday has been deemed 'the girls' day'.

Incidentally, NO repeat this Sunday. Lisztomania takes its place.